Texas IndyCar: Dixon leads rain-shortened practice at TMS

Three-time Texas winner Dixon lapped the 1.5-mile oval in 23.638sec, an average of 219.308mph to lead the two Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing-Hondas of Takuma Sato and Graham Rahal.

2017 Texas polesitter Charlie Kimball led the Chevrolet runners with a 217.503mph lap for Carlin Racing, topping Team Penske’s fastest car, the #12 of Will Power.

Alexander Rossi was sixth for Andretti Autosport, and was followed by a semi-teammate – the Harding Steinbrenner Racing entry of Colton Herta – and two full-scale teammates Zach Veach and Ryan Hunter-Reay.

Owner/driver and former Texas winner Ed Carpenter completed the top 10, while Conor Daly driving the second Carlin entry for the first time as replacement for Max Chilton, was 22^nd and last.

Based on testing at Texas last October and last March, and to prevent the blistering issues that several drivers complained about in this race last year, Firestone has brought a faster-wearing right-side compound that is more heat resistant, but has also brought an even softer one as back-up.

Cara Adams, chief engineer of Bridgestone Americas Motorsports, told Motorsport.com: “We’ll only use that [softer] compound if we see blistering. Unless we see anything that affects the whole field that is significant, we won’t run them. But they have them mounted and are by the pitwall so if we make that call, that’s what they'll use.”

Harding Steinbrenner was the only team that suffered blisters in the one-hour session.

Cla	Driver	Team	Laps	Time	Gap	Interval	Mph
1	Scott Dixon	Chip Ganassi Racing	25	23.6380			219.308
2	Takuma Sato	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing	36	23.6429	0.0049	0.0049	219.262
3	Graham Rahal	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing	30	23.7459	0.1079	0.1030	218.311
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